F.A.Q. (Please read and follow before asking for help)

This document attempts to answer many of the questions which are asked time and time again, despite our asking that people search for similar questions and read the responses before posting.

The problem with many is that the question does not have a single, satisfying answer... but please read, as I will try to explain why. It's usually because the question makes a simple, logical assumption which does not apply to Priston Tale, (at least, as it stands) or because people believe that something should be possible (everything is possible) when in fact, we do not have the means to make it so in practical terms.

Q: How can I run faster / fly / attack things before they can attack me / enable "god mode" / be invincible / get 1 hit kills on players or higher level monsters / become invisible / create items from thin air / duplicate items / level up with each kill etc. without being an Admin / GM? Or be a GM on someone elses' server without them making me one?

What is Priston Tale?

A: Priston Tale is a fantasy CRPG MMO. (Combat based Role Playing Game - Massively Multi-player On-line)

It was quite probably originally developed as a video game project by Korean students. They (certainly someone) developed a peer-based network CRPG game, and sold the code on to a company who developed it into a Client - Server model which could be used on the internet as an MMO.

What is a "peer-based network CRPG"? Well, you may have played other games where one player on the network can "Host" a game, and other players can join them in what seems to be the same game world. However, nobody on the network needs to run a "Server". This is the sort of set-up they created. Effectively, the player (peer) who "hosts" the game, is running the server. But the server software isn't a separate program, it's part of the game client.

(should get something more "current" up, but these where convention and TV promotions from around the world around various launch times... circa 2003?)

How are PT Servers Developed

A: There are some basic Server Emulators, but most servers are based on a "leaked" Japanese server.

Chinese pServers (or possibly Thia ones, depending on your politics) discovered and developed the jPT (Japanese) server to a point where it was usable, but most PT clients still have large amounts of PT Server code left in them from the time when PT was just a network game which needed no server.

Some people believe that the server we use was a poorly secured backup, while others have shown that you can make a functioning server by placing all of the leaked server code from several clients into one client, and that that client will then operate as an effective server, as capable as the 4096 server.

If you do this with early EPT Beta (Pre-AOR / Pre-Morrion) clients, the server claims to be 3192 server. The client version will still depend on what client you used as the base to import other leaked server code into.

The initial server side only assets and databases clearly do come from a very old official server however. So at least some of the full server setup has been taken from official servers. I don't think anyone could have reproduced so accurate a facsimile through guesswork and reverse engineering alone.

We do not have any source code for that main server executable. (except reversed segments of x86 assembler, or re-workings of it in higher languages like C or C++) So all development of the actual server program can only be done by RCE (Reverse Code Engineering) and patching the binary executable. (again, either in x86 assembly language, or by linking in compilations from another high-level language which does compile to x86 machine code)

A Microsoft Windows NT5+ (XP/2K/2K3) Operating System (preferably x86, though x64 can work, it can also be buggy as this was not an intended host OS)

You may also want to install Microsoft IIS if you wish to run a Clan system and the Bless Castle event. But Apache or other web servers can be used, if you are prepared to put a little more effort in. IIS will be on your official Windows install CD if you use any OS from XP onwards. It's missing from 2k Workstation, but included in any of the server options IMS.

Don't use a pirated OS, or, to be more specific, don't expect us to support one. (that's definitely not our job, and Microsoft won't support you if you don't pay them)

What is the latest, fastest, best, most stable, complete and / or feature rich PT

A: What ever it is you are looking for, you can probably find an example here somewhere.

As to what is the latest, or best... that is always subjective.

All PT Servers are either a modified version of that jPT 4.00.8 (4096) server, some other adapted client (in the case of some of the Pre-AOR servers) or a server Emulator. There is also a more recent Chinese 1024 leak which was adapted for use on Vietnamese clients and later leaked here, but most developments and tutorials will not relate to offsets in this.

PT doesn't follow any single version number sequence, and repacks are developed in parallel... so there is no single "root" / "trunk" development for PT servers. Nobody can say what is the "newest", "latest stable" or "latest beta" or "latest development" branch. There simply is no root and branch / trunk and fork style development system for any PT server. Everything is a fork of a fork of a fork... and many forks are developed in parallel.

What is the most stable, is the easiest question to answer... The v4.00.8 (4096) jPT server we first got back in 2007 which only works on really really old Japanese clients is the most stable. Every time we add a new feature, or change the server to work with a different client and so on, we introduce bugs and increase resource usage.

Can I run my PT Server on Linux?

A: Not really, no.

You can run it under Wine, (we have had a Virtual Machine image with Debian Sid Linux running a PT server) but the database connectivity doesn't usually work right, and things like Clan systems, as they stand will never work properly without it.

When we have a competing Server Emulator, porting to Linux may be practical. Until then, it is not an acceptable option for most people.

There is already a server on Java (which should work on Linux, but I don't know that it has been tested) and a version written in C# which will run on any platform which is supported by Mono and MySQL. However, they are still only developments and do not support enough features to be considered "playable" in any real sense.

Of course, you can run a Virtual Machine on your Mac or Linux system and run your PT Server on Windows as the Virtual Machines "Guest OS".

Can I use MySQL, Postgress, DBase or Oracle etc?

It's fair to say that it is possible, and when done it makes that Wine implementation under Linux much more practical, and it seems that making it your self entails considerable effort and skill.

There is now such an implementation included in Vormavs' Debian Linux Virtual Machine for MySQL only. He provides some information on doing it in true windows, and has plans to expand on the description. We have much to thank him for, so please add your Likes and +Rep either of these developments have helped you. Thanks.

How do I set up a PT server?

If you link to the thread with [thread=<thread_no>]this guide[/thread] tags, that will make it easier for people to refresh their memory about what you are trying to follow. When posted, it looks like this:-

Originally Posted by NewPTAdmin

I'm trying to follow this guide and having trouble with the bit that says "blah".

If you look at the URL in your browsers address bar for any thread, you can take the number following the last "-" as the thread= number.

eg. http://forum.ragezone.com/f286/dont-ask-server-client-use-482131/ would be [thread=482131].

Because the jPT server we usually develop was last compiled on the 28th October 2005, and such systems weren't available to build against or test on then. It had been developed to that point from a system that was (probably / possibly) written by college students more than 5 years earlier, (certainly no better qualified than college students ^_^) and contains many work-arounds to get it to run on systems as new as those!!!

The PT server (jPT 4096) is meant to be run on a Server OS, not a Home / Workstation one. It's also completely unaware of x64 processors. It works well on 2K/XP(x86) and 2K3 Server (x86)... the further you move away from those systems the more problems you will have. Several attempts to explain the many work-arounds have proven futile, as it seems that the way problems manifest, and the solutions which work are always different... sometimes even on a single system.

Some members claim to have little or no problems, so they can't explain why others have many. Personally, I have many problems, but can sometimes overcome them. For preference I tend to stick to Svr 2K, where the one problem is .Net, and I know how to fix that; by installing the .Net SDK, not the end user redistributable. OS resource overhead is also at it's lowest on this OS. But availability (getting your hands on such an old OS) may well prove a problem for you.

There are several formats for the network packets (communication system) between PT Clients and Servers. They mostly follow the Language of the original client version... but since we've had to adapt the original jPT (Japanese) server to fit newer kPT (Korean) clients, pServers can often invent a completely new communication standard. Also, official servers in various language regions have modified their protocol (another way to say "the communication system") over the years.

Most server repacks either come with a client, or are supposed to be used with the Korean PT clients from around Version 1.87.3 or 1.85.5. That has pretty much become the standard communication system for open development, and KPT haven't changed it much since. (they added new crafting NPCs and some "premium" boost items which those old versions and most of our servers know nothing about, or use in a "custom" way and that's it *update* they also added Tier 5, which none of our servers can use, yet ^_^)

I can't get Clans / Bless / SoD Scores, why?

A: All these things are connected.

SoD scores are Clan based, and Bless Castle Siege is all about the controlling Clan. So you need a Clan system, and that is separate from the regular PT server. Search the releases, the Sandurr Clan which is pinned is the most popular.

Actually, Clan information is passed to the client via your web server, and as the official developers use IIS, that is the easiest to set up. You may well have to alter URLs encoded in your client to make Clan work from your Web server, and Sandurrs' system polls information in the database at regular intervals in order to update the server side scripts which generate the pages that the PT client reads Clan and SoD (Bellatra) details from.

If you are keen to use Apache, there is an excellent Clan/SoD system by Vormav based on Gregoos' IIS system which has the added potential to work without the background polling application. That part should also be possible with IIS.

There are also a couple of "hotuk.ini" configuration settings to enable the Clan Master, if they aren't set, you don't get errors from him when your web server isn't set up correctly. So he's usually turned off by default.

My server runs fine, but it keeps crashing.

A: The most common cause is "timed / boss monster spawn" and a certain memory leak.

Commonly Kelvesu and Valento are often distributed with corrupt configuration files. I don't know why, just bad repacks I guess. Delete these monsters from your server and see if that fixes the problem. If it does, you should probably hunt for a repack with a working config file for these monsters, rather than trying to fix the broken ones.

If the crash is only once or twice a day, or every other day, with no specific interval or time of day, then the chances are that you are hitting a bug which seems to be present in most of the PT servers based on jPT 4096. It almost never happens on the original, but that isn't usually as popular. The PT server fragments memory quite badly as part of it's (poor) design, but as we've added monsters, maps, items, translations etc. this progressively reduces the resources available for it to make a mess of. XD I know some teams have managed to reduce this, but I don't know any who have solved it. Certainly, nobody has ever shared a solution with us.

Many people think that having 6 - 8 Gig or more RAM should solve this. They are wrong! Remember that the PT Server is a 32-bit program, and that a 32-bit program can only address 4Gig. Windows will only get about 3 of that 4Gig for it's own use, and with the OS running you'll be lucky to get more than a couple for your server. Paging to the swap file will give it the impression that it has 3 Gig if you modify the PE to use more than 2Gig, but paging is slow!

If your server has more than 3Gig of memory, you are already working around the x64 problems, and PT is actually running in a Virtual x86 system, with overheads of it's own. This may even make the situation worse. (My experience suggests how much better or worse the situation becomes depends on the OS, Service Pack and most importantly the motherboard chipset and BIOS code... which in this day and age should really have very little to do with running applications, but...)

Most pServers with any population simply run the server under some form of re-starter, so that when the server crashes, it starts up again straight away. Cleaver ones try to set the server to shut down once or twice a day as part of a "regular maintenance regime". That way players get warning of the impending restart, and don't loose any kit or Exp. The server gets to clean it's fragmented memory blocks up and start again fresh once a day or so.

Several server repacks include ServerDoc which seems to be a fairly effective restarter and most still have the Server2048 which was the official restarter, but it's not very adaptable. Windows Vista, 2008 and 7 have restart options in the Task Scheduler.

To prove how simple it is to achieve a custom solution Tough shared an NT Batch file which he created for this purpose, and I shared a similar AutoIt script which I've used and can be expanded upon. Unlike the others, it will spot when the server has "hung" rather than completely crashed... but I've seen pServers solve this with PHP scripts too. So don't think these are the only solutions.

I can log in, but my friends can't connect to my server.

A: Usually because you have set your server on your LAN IP.

You need to find out what the external IP of your Modem is, and set your server up on that. Then you need to open or forward the correct port for your server in your modem. Or set up a Virtual LAN over the internet, set your servers listening IP to it's IP on that network and have your friends join that LAN before trying to connect.

Actually Opening or Forwarding ports is a function of a Router / Firewall. Most Modems now have one built-in, but the interface is always different, so you'll have to look up the details for your Modem / Router to find out how to do that. If you run a Software firewall on your Server PC, you'll need to open the port on that too, of course.

All of this is off-topic for these forums, as you would need to do this in order to allow public access to any service you run on your system anyway. To some extent, one has to ask if you are ready to run a PT server on the internet if you are struggling with this basic concept... maybe try to set up a Web or FTP server first.

The Port for PT is usually somewhere between 10006 and 10011. There are guides here to tell you how to find out which one your server is set to, (Eg. here. Also see "Q: Why doesn't my client connect to my server?" above for more) If it isn't in the documentation provided with the repack you downloaded, again, try and find a guide you understand, follow it and if you get stuck, or don't understand the results, start a new [help] thread citing (preferably linking) the guide(s) you read, what you recorded, what you think it means, and what you are struggling to do or understand. Will happily give you a hand from there.

How do I play in a Window, or as a GM?

A: Window mode is often only available to Admin users. (GMs)

Modifying a client to allow regular users to log in windowed is possible, and not particularly hard, (some of the official PT clients where released this way) but we haven't got around to writing a guide for it yet. To log in as a GM you need to set about 5 lines in your servers "hotuk.ini" and usually create a Korean ANSI file in the client folder, also called "hotuk.ini". It needs to have a couple of special lines.

There are several guides on this, but the actual lines for the client are often different in different clients. So the client you downloaded should have some documentation to say, or you need to look in it's code. I've written some advise on finding out what the Admin line is for a particular client if you have a search around.

Some clients (like the English one) actually have the code which allows Admin mode physically disabled, or removed. They don't usually do a very good job of it though, and even if it where completely removed, the design of the program means a good RCE worker can put it back in from another client.

What specs do I need to make an Über server for everyone?

Remember the age of the program. You will hit the limits of the software (now over a decade old) long before you hit the limits of most modern server hardware.

You can easily run PT on a Windows 2000 server with 128 Meg (yes Megabytes) of memory and a single drive with only a couple of Gig free.

Such a system will not run out of resources before the software crashes anyway. But when you add Clans, a Web server, extra maps and have many players at a time... it will run slowly and create a large swap file. It may even seem to lock up at times. This still proves what you don't need to worry about.